The last man standing from the opening day rotation, Hiroki Kuroda (6-6, 4.20 ERA) goes up against Miguel Gonzalez (4-5, 4.22 ERA) in a critical match up against the O’s. Kuroda has faced Baltimore twice so far this season, pitching well both times. He defeated them on April 7th in New York and took a no decision on June 20th, when he allowed just two runs over six innings.
Gonzalez was solid in his last start against the Red Sox. He allowed just two runs, one earned, and gave the Orioles a season high eight innings. It couldn’t have came at a better time because his spot in the rotation was thought to be in jeopardy. “I told myself not to do too much, stay aggressive, down in the zone, especially against a team like this that has a good lineup,” Gonzalez said. “We came up a little short. You can’t do anything about that. It’s baseball.”
The Orioles come into the game first in the division and a four game lead over the third place Yankees. “If you have a good series in Baltimore, you go into the break and you’re right in the middle of everything with 60 something games to go after that,” said Joe Girardi. “What you want is an opportunity. You want an opportunity to win your division, and we continue to play well on this road trip, we’re going to have that opportunity. Even if we don’t, we still have a lot of games in our division. That’s what you want, an opportunity.”
With Tanaka going down, it is unlikely the Yanks will announce a starter for Sunday’s game until Saturday, but there is a good chance the start will go to Chase Whitley. “I think it all depends on what happens the next few days,” Girardi said. “Larry and I talked about it, we brought it up today, and he said, ‘Let’s just get through the next few days to determine what we’re going to do.'”
Notes on the game
Derek Jeter picked up his 1,000th career multi-hit game while Ichiro Suzuki picked up MLB career hit number 2,800 Thursday in Cleveland.
First pitch at 7:05pm on Yes
